Oracle Magazine spoke with Michael Fauscette, group vice president for software business solutions at IDC, about techniques for streamlining enterprise software implementations.

Oracle Magazine: What are the primary challenges companies face when integrating enterprise applications, and how are software vendors such as Oracle addressing these challenges?

Fauscette: One of the biggest challenges involves creating and synchronizing business processes across multiple applications. For example, when you process an order, you also want to update your inventory tables, create an invoice, and coordinate packaging and shipping. Once you start looking at these business processes holistically, it makes sense for the software vendor to provide a framework for structuring those process integrations for you. Thatís why in the past many customers tried to standardize on one enterprise software suite, or at least on applications from a small number of vendors.

In todayís environment, where IT shops are often heterogeneous, itís even more critical to have an established method for integrating among disparate applications. For example, if you are aligned with a vendor such as Oracle, you can get packaged process integrations and a toolkit to simplify enterprise implementations. Thatís why more companies are standardizing on an integration toolkit for all of their integration needs. This is a real advantage for the IT organization.